of their being agents of the French Government were once cleared away. Notwithstanding so much clear thinking, however, the action of the Chinese continued, as before, nebulous. They seemed never able to seize the bull by the horns, but drifted on, allowing themselves constantly to be put in the wrong, hoping perhaps to accomplish by illegitimate means what was within their legal competence. Afraid or unwilling to control the provincial authorities, they allowed outrages to be perpetrated for which they refused redress until coercion was applied, thus affording to foreign Powers a not in all cases unwelcome pretext for extending their protection even to Chinese Christians. Within a month of the consummation of the transfer of the Pei-t'ang Cathedral, and after the Marquis Tsêng, fresh from Europe, had taken his seat at the Board, the Tsungli-Yamên had fallen into its chronic apathy with regard to Christians. A missionary named Bodinier arrived in Peking from distant Kweichow for the purpose of soliciting the intervention or intercession of the French Legation in favour of the persecuted Christians in that province. While he was on his journey the Catholics of Chungking in Szechuan were being similarly maltreated. Certain disturbances in that great commercial mart culminated in the attack on the house of a wealthy Christian family, which resisted the assailants, several of whom were killed in the affray. The magistrates, who had been supine during the time when the mischief was brewing, thereupon arrested the head of the Lo family and condemned him to death,--an exercise of authority which was held to be arbitrary, and invidiously directed against Christians. Here was an occasion when the Central Government should have taken prompt action, and so deprived the French Government of any pretext for interference. It was a moment when that Government was less apt than usual to put forth its power in the Christian cause. M. Constans was Minister in China, and he was personally not at all disposed to assume the protection of Chinese Christians. Nevertheless, the case being urgent, and the Tsungli-Yamên either cowardly or indifferent, M. Constans broke through the rule he had laid down for himself so far as to telegraph to Paris for instructions. The reply was prompt, doubtless inspired by the propaganda at home, to the effect that he should take up the case of Mr Lo. Thus the Chinese threw away a golden opportunity of showing to the world that the Chinese Christians did not stand in need of any foreign aid. An impartial investigation might have shown, indeed, that the Christians were the aggressors, and the local Chinese officials might have been vindicated from the charges made against them. But the Government's inaction constantly puts it in the wrong even when it may be substantially in the right. The same fatal course has been regularly pursued even to our day, with results patent to all. FOOTNOTES: